Principal Scott Fleming and board members met with parents at a called meeting Thursday night to announce the closing, and students were informed Friday morning, Fleming said.

The news was met with shock and disbelief, said Amy Barbe, whose daughter, Annabelle, is a sophomore at Donovan.

"There were certainly tears shed," Barbe said. "It kind of feels like a death in the family."

Barbe, who said her daughter loved the school and the teachers, added that she thought the board and Fleming broke the disappointing news well and that the timing was adequate for parents to consider other schools for the next school year.

A short news release issued Friday stated that the 10-member board of directors of the school "determined that the school does not have the financial resources to continue operating at the anticipated levels of enrollment."

The independent Catholic school opened on Lavender Road in August 2003, but school enrollment this year comprised only 41 students in two grade levels, ninth and 10th grades. Those pupils represent less than half the number needed to sustain the school's financial health.

Tom Scott, the school board's president, said feasibility studies called for 50 students in two classes for each grade level to keep the high school economically viable.

Fleming said that for the 2005-06 school year, the school got only 24 applications, far short of the 50 needed to support the school's operating costs.

The private school also owed money for construction and faced additional needs for money to cover expanding the school facility as the student body grew, Fleming said.

The Northeast Georgia Catholic High School Inc., a special corporation established to develop the high school, raised $1.6 million to help pay for the $3 million cost of constructing and furnishing the school, which included an academic wing with six classrooms and offices and a multipurpose building with a basketball court and a cafeteria area. The facility sits on 47 acres of land, part of a 104-acre tract purchased by the corporation, which sold the other 57 acres last summer.

The school borrowed the rest of the money needed to construct the first phase of the building.

Scott said the school would have needed another $6 million to $7 million to build new classrooms and pay for operating costs in coming years.

Without adequate enrollment to help offset some of those costs, school supporters would have had to mount a fund-raising campaign, yet a study showed the Athens community would likely contribute only $2 million to $2.8 million.

Monsignor Donovan Catholic High School received the blessing of the Catholic Archdiocese of Atlanta, but without any financial support from that religious body, the school had to depend on private donations, pledges and fund-raising efforts. With such a small number of students fund-raising was difficult.

Now that the board has decided to close the school, Fleming said his main concern is to take care of the students.

"We told the students and the parents we are going to go out in style and have a lot of grace and dignity as we do that, as we have had all along," Fleming said.